A beautifully written debut about a family navigating cancer and how it effects lives and how at the same time life must go on. Devastatingly stunning .

A beautifully written book following a mother and daughter as they maneuver the mother's cancer. The audiobook was a pleasure to listen to, and kept me engaged throughout.

A refreshing style of writing, the twists and jumps from the present to the past was well throughout and not confusing at all as a listener. I found myself laughing, tearing up and emotionally invested in every character. Loved it, and recommend if you're looking for something different and unexpected.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book and the longlisting for the Booker Prize made it seem like something that I should not miss.

I listened to the book rather than read it, and found it hard to follow at times. The book is about a mother, Lia, her relationship with her husband and daughter as she is dying from cancer. However, in amongst this main story line there are many 'forays' into other times in Lia's life, which were really hard to make sense of as an audio file. I have read that the published book contains illustrations and feel like I really missed something by listening to this book and probably did not fully appreciate the intricacies of the full story.

In addition to Lia's story, you get to hear a perspective from the cancer itself which is existing (thriving?) within Lia's body. This dual narrative worked well in the audio book because two narrators were used so it was easy to tell which voice was 'speaking'. The two narrators were great and this enhanced the story for me.

What struck me was how malevolent the presence of the cancer was in Lia's body. Whilst this is obvious, no-one wants cancer to reside within them - this book really emphasised the sinister nature of its existence. This 'voice' develops as the novel continues and I was increasingly aware of the parasitic nature of this illness. It needed Lia to be alive to continue to exist, yet, paradoxically, the way that cancer thrives is to kill its host. As Lia's illness progresses I became aware of the change in the tone of the cancer's 'voice' and its possession of the host body; by the end of the book the cancer is talking of 'our' body and 'we' - there is no way to separate Lia from her illness.

All in all it is a disturbing read - probably better in print than audio. I found both the content and the delivery difficult.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a complex, poetic novel about a mother, Lia, her life and her cancer. This sounds grim, but it is actually quite beautiful. Lia has a family - a daughter (Iris - a legacy) - a colourful past and an ambiguous relationship with religion thanks to being the daughter of a vicar. Lia's story is intertwined with Iris's story, chopped up and scattered about the place in a series of digressions. All interspersed with the voice of the cancer, with its array of facets or friends.

There is a narrative story in amongst it all, and the story does set up the opportunity for some conflicted emotions within Lia's family towards the end. There is also a stream of consciousness, meandering series of essays on love in its various meanings. There are occasional moments of despair, but mostly this is about life carrying on, even though it obviously won't. What does it mean to step away from life? And how will meals get put on the table in the meantime?

There are complex themes in this novel, and as a terminal patient, Lia is able to consider them without really having to own the long-term consequences. She is able to observe the world with detachment, occupying an almost ghostly status after announcing her imminent departure and actually leaving.

The best way to enjoy the text is to let it wash over you, seeing patterns and flashes of light as they pass, but without feeling the urge to be in full control of the text.

So different! Amazing narration, really liked this and will recommend it to everyone.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me listen to this audiobook in exchange for my review.

***Audio ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley.co.uk in return for an honest review **

This book was beautifully written and whilst I was concerned that listening the the audio narration would hinder the experience, I actually thought this worked beautifully.

Spoilers below:

The narrative splits between the central character Lia, both now and in her younger life; unfortunately in the present she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Interestingly, the 3rd perspective in the book is her cancer personified. This reminded me of The Book Thief and how well these chapters were used to cast a sinister shadow over the protagonist's life and was really effective here. There seems to be a lot of hype around this book and awards coming its way, and I really enjoyed it, though the subject matter was emotionally tough at times.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 out of 5 stars

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies focuses on Lia, her husband and their teenage daughter Iris as they navigate Lia's terminal illness. The narration moves from the present to the past and from Lia to Iris. Even the disease, most probably cancer, is given a voice that is alternatively cynical and cruel or disturbingly cheerful.

Despite the narration that moves freely between past and present, this book has surprises and plot twists. It can be read as a reflection on terminal illness, its effects on the patient and the family, an analysis of mother-daughter relations, or the coming-of-age stories of Lia and Iris. All of those interpretations provide an exciting lecture.

Before I started reading, I knew there was a passage in this novel written from the perspective of the disease. I would have been shocked by it if I did not know beforehand. I was still surprised by the quality of the voice given to the illness. It becomes another character in the novel, as complex as the rest, including personality, feelings, fears and goals. I listened to the audiobook of this book, and the performance was spellbinding.

I think Maddie Mortimer made a brave decision to not only challenge the taboo of terminal illness but also to use it in such an imaginative way.

My published review:
https://abookishdaydream.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/maps-of-our-spectacular-bodies/

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
By Maddie Mortimer

When Lia discovers that her cancer is back, her concern flies immediately to her daughter Iris, on the cusp of adulthood, and her husband Harry. Lia's body is at war with itself. But this is unlike any book you have ever read before about a person's journey with cancer. There is a very good reason why this was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. The writing is gorgeous, wistful, lyrical, reflective, humorous. The structure is so interesting. Told in three POVs which in my mind are like a female trinity:-

Lia: as she reflects on her life experiences, her adolescence, her first love, her religious upbringing and her repelling of it, her neuroses, all of which have mapped themselves into her body, becoming her, informing her.

Lia's mother: who is trying to understand what is happening to her daughter's body, deeply religious and emotionally cold.

The disease: growing, spreading, morphing throughout Lia's body, multiplying, metastasising, becoming self aware, becoming Lia.

This is a breathtaking insight into the thoughts of someone facing premature death, it speaks of the various varieties of mother/daughter love, but the most interesting thing for me is the ideas it raises about how every thought, every feeling, every everything that makes up our lives has the power to shape deep deep parts of ourselves and become us.

Thanks to #netgalley and #macmillanukaudio for the ALC

People are difficult beings. They are complex and nuanced, with hidden pasts and long-building futures. Try as anyone can, it is impossible to represent one's whole self through just one perspective. This book knows this to be fundamentally true so uses a range of mediums to try to do the human experience justice: multi-perspective, non-chronological stories, first and third-person narratives, typography, lexical play and metaphors galore.

Children's books writer and illustrator Lia has survived one bout of cancer but it has returned, and it's worse. She sees the effect and worries about its impact on her university lecturer husband, her daughter, who's just started secondary school, her best friend and her widowed mother. Lia also can't let go of the love affair she had with the boy her parents took in when they were young.

They are Red, The Gardener, Yellow, Dove and Fossil respectively.

Every event and feeling in Lia's 'real' life is replicated in her interior life- in her body. The second voice- denoted by the changes to the font (and change of narrator in the audio)- is seeing these moments play out twice; delighted on both occasions to see the outcome. It's an unusual reading experience, one that is both insightful and refreshing, as well as mind-boggling.

Mortimer has spoken about her own experiences of being a child of a parent with cancer, specifically describing the companionship nature of the disease; it is something to live with, not necessarily fight. This view informs the tone of the book- Lia isn't battling (or any of the other verbs so freely used) cancer, she just has it.

It's an interesting concept to follow and well-presented in this experimental style. Occasionally, the metaphors of metaphors exploring abstract ideas dowsed in symbolism become a drag. All of the words are lovely but one is not entirely sure what they're on about.

As a debut from a young author, it's impressive. Even without the typography, it explores numerous topics that so many can connect with: changing religious beliefs, the relationship between parent and child, or watching loved ones deteriorate.

The audio narration from Lydia Wilson and Tamsin Greig is sublime, beautifully pairing the poignant prose with the compelling narrative.

Maddie Mortimer’s fantastically unique take on cancer and complex relationships was rightly the winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2022 and longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022.

The novel upends and shifts time and narrative techniques throughout. We are taken through the protagonist Lia’s life, jumping from time points throughout the novel. We learn of her childhood with strict religious parents and the introduction of the strangely enigmatic Matthew; to Lia’s marriage to Harry and motherhood to Iris as her daughter approaches adolescence. The narrator shifts from Lia (voiced by Lydia Wilson) to Lia’s body (voiced by Tamsin Greig). This inventive form of narration, truly shines on the audiobook format. Tamsin Greig’s performance captures the malevolence of Lia’s cancer as it grows throughout Lia’s body. The two viewpoints from the narrators give a compelling account of Lia’s cancer journey from the inside out. This in my opinion was my favourite aspect of the novel a novel and interesting writing device.

Overall, this was a powerful and moving read and was thoroughly deserving of the awards and accolades it has received so far. I’d join them in recommending this book to others, with the slight caveat that it may be a difficult read for anyone personally affected by cancer currently. Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan UK Audio for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

A compelling read. Having lost a loved one to cancer this one really hit a nerve. I can’t believe it was a debut novel. The prose, the relatability to the characters; I was captivated all the way through.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer .

This book soared into my top five reads of the year, I loved every single word of it. Longlisted for the Booker and winner of the 2022 Desmond Elliott Prize, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a stunning read. I was surprised to discover it was a debut novel and that author is in her mid-twenties as the writing is assured, original, confident and just beautiful. However, it seems to be a bit of a marmite read based on some reviews I have read. A couple from reviewers with whom I usually share very similar opinions of books didn't love it. The book is about a woman whose breast cancer has returned and takes an experimental form, different fonts, lists, definitions (these were my favourite element) it's a very unique read.
Lia is 43 and a children's author who lives with her husband and 12-year-old daughter. When her breast cancer returns, her world is upended. Lia examines her life to date; her relationships and wonders will happen next. The narrative switches between some of the characters and from the cancer that is ravaging Lia's body itself, its voice growing stronger as the book unfolds.
This book completely grabbed me from the off, the prose is captivating, dancing across the page. It's a devastating, funny, poignant read and one I will be thinking about for a long time.

Like most people, I am a mood reader and I read this book at just the right time, which may be partly why I was so enchanted by it. I loved how the author captured the relationships in the book, especially the relationship of Lia with her daughter and with her mother, both of which were written with punch in the stomach recognisable realness.

I loved it, highly recommend but do approach with caution if the subject matter is too real for you right now.

I read this book and then was approved for the audiobook so went back and listened to it a week after reading it (there are very few books that would make me do that) and it is a joy on audio. Beautifully narrated and brought a whole new perspective to sections of the book. Absolutely recommend listening to this one or reading it and then listening to it!

Lia, her husband, Harry, and their daughter, Iris, are all dealing with Lia’s cancer diagnosis. As Lia looks back at her life we learn of her deeply religious parents, an unhealthy teenage relationship, illness and then the joy of and love for her family. In addition we have the ever stronger voice of the cancer itself which is cleverly interwoven. There is a feeling of deep sadness that runs through the book and it is beautifully written. The narration by Tamsin Greig and Lydia Wilson was wonderful. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As usual I did not read a synopsis of this book. If I had I'd have probably not given it a second look. However as it was a Netgalley audio version and I saw that one of the narrators was Tamsin Greig I thought I'd give it a go.

Lucky me that I did. This is a thoroughly beautiful, heart wrenching, heartbreaking book.

It is the story of Lia who is dying of cancer. The audio version is split into Lia's voice and that of the cancer (Tamsin Greig). The prose is incredibly lyrical and the voice of the cancer is all that you expect - wheedling, strident, angry, cautious, secretive. It is a brilliant piece of writing that lends itself beautifully to audio.

We are taken through Lia's life where the cancer is always present to some degree. We see her difficult childhood, her first love, the consequences it has and her life afterward with a child of her own and a loving husband who also have to deal with the destruction the cancer causes. The knowledge that she is dying brings her estranged mother back into her life which is not without its difficulties.

All in all this is a truly magnificent piece of work and I'd highly recommend anyone to try the audio version. (I've since seen a lot of reviews complaining about the ebook printed version so I feel doubly blessed.)

It is a masterful work of art but it's not for the faint hearted. I have not lost a child but the scenes with Lia's mother are, nonetheless, devastating to listen to. We are all, in some way, touched by cancer and I lost my husband to it. This book spoke to me in a way others have not. I recognise that cancer - the one that hides itself only to return and take over.

It is not an easy listen but it's worth the tears.

Thanks to Netgalley for the audio version in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful ... I am utterly speechless ... made me cry .. struggling to review it.
Absolutely brilliant debut!

5/5 stars, Favourite Read of 2022 thusfar.

“Thyme is to chili, parsley, basil, as time is to cancer, cancer, cancer.”

Every so often I come across a book that I fall deeply in love with, but know for a fact that I won’t be able to express or share that love with many others. Because my love and connection to it is as much tied to me and my personal story, as it is to the story contained in these pages.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is the lyrical tale of a woman, her body and the illness that coinhabits it. Told from the perspectives of Lia herself, her daughter Iris and the (callous? Cynical? Caring…?) voice of the disease itself, we follow her life after a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Despite the fact that my head is still too full with it to write a proper-form review, here are three things you need to know:

1. The prose is exquisite. It’s somewhere in that shadowland of not being quite prose, but not quite poetry either, yet every word is purposeful and in its right place. The closest thing I can compare it to would be Salena Godden's Mrs Death Misses Death, although I personally loved this book even more.
2. I can’t quite remember the last time I physically cried over a book. This one broke my tear-free streak though. With its unflinching and raw honesty, its deeply relatable characters and striking delivery, it hit a nerve I didn’t know was still so raw within me.
3. This is the best book about cancer I’ve read in a long time. That’s mainly because it’s not just a book about cancer. Unlike many others within the genre, Mortimer doesn’t portray a battle-narrative. There is no hero’s journey of a strong-willed protagonist against a body in revolt, or a personified evil to be vanquished. Instead it’s the story of Lia as a whole, and everything her body holds: memories, heartbreak, love, regrets, experiences; cancer being but one of them. Yes, it’s the story of a body’s annihilation, but only secondary to being about the life it has lived.
As a cancer-survivor, and now MD in Oncology myself, that neutrality and perhaps even “compassion” was what resonated with me and my journey so strongly. The journey of seeing cancer, not as an all-powerful malevolent force, but more neutral "passenger" or co-inhabitor of a body and a life. It's what I strive for in my own life and that of my patients: for their illness not to be all-consuming, but a part of life and a body that they can look at without fear, and with acceptance and a bit of compassion. I've never read a novel that captured a similar feeling so strongly.

I want to recommend this book to everyone. I also know that very few people are going to share the deeply personal connection and experience I had with it. I can see this being a marmite-book: great to some, off-putting to others. The only way to know is to experience it for yourself. Sometimes the best experiences are the ones we share with only a few.